Friday, June 20, 2025

Book 1 - The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

I finished The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride some time ago, it's just I've been writing about the trip and stuff happened, so now that I could sit down, let me write a little about it. I like the novel a lot. It's set in the 1920s - 1930s America and tells the story of the marginalized Americans - the African-Americans, the immigrants (Jewish, Italians) - basically people who were looked down upon and discriminated against. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was owned by a Jewish couple and the customers were mostly African-Americans being that they're located on the poor side of town. The story began with the Jews and I thought that the story would be about them. I didn't expect that it would end with the African-Americans. I like books that are rich in their storytelling, not only that we learn about the lives of the Jews and the African Americans, we also had glimpses of the Italian immigrants lives and a boy with cerebral palsy, even the white people and their prejudice. I think this book would be banned under Trump administration (maybe already is) because they may argue that it makes the white people feel bad. I thought about it a lot, me being Indonesian Chinese, how bad things that happened related to race get swept under the rug in Indonesia - let's not talk about these bad things in the past, why dig old wounds. Well because we haven't gotten closure on it? We're just told to accept and shut up. Worse, we're told what you think happened did not happen. Maybe people who are part of the majority ruling race would get uncomfortable seeing their race portrayed a certain way, but I don't know - learn, get a little bit of understanding - because the majority ruling race would never experience what it's like to be discriminated against, when we, the victims, are told or taught to shut up lest more troubles will come our way because the majority ruling race that oppress us control everything. In a society like that, some members of the discriminated races may choose to be subservient to the ruling race in the hope they themselves could get ahead, though ahead by very little because they would never be fully accepted. We may know people like this. The Jewish wife who owned the store knew that such personal gain is nothing. Even when her family had gotten rich, she chose to stay with her people (the discriminated African-American community) because she would rather be there than be with the fake people who may look at you a little bit better just because you have money. She understood it's respect and justice for all or nothing. The novel has its shares of tragedy, there were things that I was so sad about and sometimes there's not big enough of a win to make the losses okay. Reaching the ending, well I'm glad it's not bad. Life moved on for these discriminated people. With all the bad things they had to endure, they found a way to move on and as in the first chapter of the book, God did deliver His justice.

Moving on to me and my stuff. In the last week of June, two location changes happened to me, in the same week! I didn't want it to happen, but happened it must. My whole day to day practically changes completely and as someone who hates changes, I wouldn't say I cope well. One of the changes, I can't talk much, aside for saying that I'd been having it so good for years and now this new place I found myself in, well I started praying to God to help me survive it on the days I have to be there. The other location change that I can talk about is my living situation. I knew I had to move since last year, I think I may have written about me being so stressed out for something that was 6 months away. Yeah, it occupied my mind a lot, despite of mom telling me to take it easy. I prayed and prayed that things would change, but it didn't and so I needed to find a new place to stay. Options were limited, well options that I could perhaps accept. I ended up in a setting that's similar to my previous place but it's 300 SGD more and that weighs on me a whole lot (still is if I think about it). Obviously talked to my mom about it and then my cousin. Kinda good when mom gave her blessing, saying where would make you happy, choose that and move on. Then my cousin was also like let go of the money. She understands how being in our age, we have become very specific on what we can or cannot accept - less adaptable. Money cannot solve everything, but I also thought maybe this is the part where you could throw the money to help you feel a bit better. Now that I'm here, I can't say I feel better. I know I know I am ungrateful to God for saying this because I know the alternative could be worse. I could imagine me being so depressed in the alternative. It's just - my old place was not the nicest place around, in fact there quite a number of things I would change but there's a lot of setup there that I missed a lot and wished could have here, but it's not available. So being here, close to two weeks now, well if I let my mind go there, I still just miss the old place and I still imagine how easy it would be if I was there :( I know it's bad and very ungrateful of me for feeling this way. Another thing I learn since I moved is that I may hate cats - okay maybe just their shed hairs - gosh I cannot stand them :( Today I tried to do something and it was a mess with thing breaking down. Talked to mom about it and she was like you most probably need to let go all these things that you're holding on and bother you and accept things as they are and perhaps then things will pick up. Yep, she's right. Please help me God!

:) eKa @ 8:13:00 PM •